Welcome!
Aquaponics is gardening and fish raising together in a way that takes advantage of the naturally symbiotic relationship between them. The plants around a lake aren't just lush because of the water, but also the nutrients provided by the fish.
This blog is as much journal as anything. If you want to learn more I recommend you start at the beginning. Otherwise just skim and enjoy the pictures!

Thursday, March 22, 2012

The greenhouse will not be replaced. We shopped around, looked at every option from prebuilt to kit to DIY, factored in the discount I can get on glass since I work at a window manufacturer, calculated the DIY with our company windows at a deep employee discount, every possible variation we could think of. And the lowest we could get the cost for the size greenhouse we want was still *way* over our budget. More than twice what we're willing to spend even with dad's help. So instead we're going to work at making our existing greenhouse more weather- and critter-proof. We can probably get it fairly well protected for less than $200. That's be our project over the next month or two.

We got the rafts sized correctly and into the raft bed, though there are no plants in there yet. That same "leg" of the system also has the half-barrels and I'm pleased to say the tomato plants in there are thriving. The cilantro, basil, and strawberries we planted last month are doing well. The lettuce appears to have been completely demolished by the critter. But it's just lettuce - I can replace that easily enough. I really just wanted it in there to help keep the water healthy.

As for prior plants: the old strawberry plant has berries on it! One will likely be eaten (by US not the critter!) this Saturday. The broccoli was so ravaged by the critter I want to pull it out. Fiance wants to prune it back and let it try again. I'll probably go with his plan, since I really need the plants in there to balance the system. The leeks I hadn't harvested are ridiculously huge. I'd say 3" diameter. I won't eat them at this point - they'd probably be too fibrous. But I'll leave them there to soak up nitrates until I get more plants going.

The fish are big. And definitely ready for harvest. And I don't *think* I'm being squeamish about their fate as dinner. But we haven't harvested any yet - even though it would help balance the system while the plant volume is so low. It's a messy job, and our neighbors have volunteered to help clean fish, so I'm putting it off until we have some warm weather and they don't have plans.

We had snow last weekend, so all my fine plans for garden work went out the window. But this weekend is likely to be nice, and I don't have any plans for Saturday, so I think we'll finally get some more work done in there. Hopefully my next update includes pictures of a raft bed so full of plants you can't see the rafts. :-)
And possibly we'll haul out a fish or three.